The Checklist Manifesto

The industry of hospitality is growing fast owing to many social and economical reasons in the modern world and this has brought up different career opportunities in the industry. Barista, Bar attendant, Chef, Concierge, Food and beverage manager, Hotel Service supervisor and waiter are only a handful of the career opportunities out of the endless list.

If you are interested in shaping your future as a barista, you will be glad to know that more than 2 billion coffee cups are made around the world in a day. According to payscale.com, the average hourly salary of a barista in Australia is $17 which can vary from $12.15 to $21.43 and qualifications and experience can boost it.

The term barista refers to a professional coffee maker but the obsession for coffee of a barista cannot be limited to a single term. It is an art that has to be nurtured with passion for coffee and this art can polish up the skills of a barista to make and serve coffee.

In the early days, the position of the barista was restricted to a qualified few who did not wish to share the techniques and tips of coffee making and therefore the occupation was dominated by particular set of families.

However in the modern world, these traditional techniques as well as new innovative tips and methods can be learnt by barista courses. The key tasks that are focused in coffee training can be summarized as –

History of coffee and coffee making

Coffee styles

Selecting and grinding coffee

Extracting coffee

Operating the coffee machine

Texturing milk

Pouring patterns

Roasting and blending

Serving and presenting espresso

Coffee presentation

Cleaning, proper use and maintenance of equipment

Apart from the above mentioned tasks, cooperating with team members, greeting customers, taking orders and operating the cash register are also skilled in these courses.

In order to become a barista and work in a restaurant, the passion for coffee making is not sufficient. Formal qualifications play a significant role in fine tuning the skills and present you as a professional barista.

Unless you are learning to make coffee to impress your friends at the next dinner party, getting your hands on a recognized and legal document that certifies you as a barista is absolutely valuable. In Australia, Certificate III in Hospitality produces a qualified waiter and the same certificate is applicable to become a qualified barista.

There are many barista training schools that offer various types of certificates and the outcomes of each course, duration and course fees may vary. Most of these courses are offered by institutes that are linked to cafes, coffee shops, restaurants and hospitality training schools. With the advance of technology, online courses too are available but I doubt the efficiency of these courses since coffee making involves physical training.

The most important aspect to consider is the correspondence of the certificate with your expectations and it is wise to do a little personal research before deciding on the course you wish to join.…

Anyone who has used the Internet in the past decade is certainly aware of the Netflix video streaming services, but may not yet be aware of the Netflix cost assessed for them. Netflix, originally a company whose only service was DVD rental, has released several internet streaming options that get rid of the disks altogether.

Streaming Content Without Disks

One of the major benefits to using the Netflix cost effective streaming service is that there are no disks to worry about. That means no waiting for the arrival of a package from a Netflix distribution center somewhere nearby, and no risks of paying extra for accidentally scratching or damaging a disk.

Instead, a huge library of television shows and movies, including Netflix original serials that you would not find on any other network, are available for streaming directly from your internet provider. Netflix offers several types of internet streaming plans that are largely distinguished by the number of screens that are available for each one:

• One screen, SD quality – $7.99 per month: This is the least expensive of the offered Netflix cost options for streaming services.
• Two screens, HD quality – $8.99 per month: This option allows an extra screen to stream simultaneously while increasing the definition to a 720p minimum. This can be enjoyed for only a single extra dollar compared to the cheapest option.
• Four screens, HD quality – $11.99 per month: With a slight increase in price, HD quality content can be enjoyed on four separate devices simultaneously. This is an ideal package for families and homes shared between roommates.

What Kinds Of Devices Are Supported As Screens?

One of the primary benefits of Netflix streaming when compared to other sources of television content is that you can use a wide range of devices to watch your favorite shows and movies. Most television sets are compatible with Netflix streaming, and all computers and laptops are. Additionally, mobile devices can be used to access streamed content, including:

Essentially, when Netflix offers their premium streaming services and immense library of serials and films on a screen, it really means any screen at all. If the device connects to the Internet and displays images, chances are that you can benefit from top quality Netflix content at low Netflix cost.…

Planning for pregnancy need not be tricky for those who are aware of their internal clock. Halfway through every woman’s menstrual cycle, a cycle starting from the first day of blood flow, occurs a period when the egg is released.

The days leading up to this period, specially the two days before ovulation are specially conducive for pregnancy. Many online calculators are available that give a range of roughly five days when the odds are most in favor.

For further assurance, one can try the ovulation kits that give accurate results based on saliva or urine tests. Hence couples can relax! Ovulation calculators are a great help in those seriously interested in conceiving.…

I heard John Mullan once make an observation about the rafts of Austen books out there — there may well be material on Jane Austen and the navy, he said, but is there a book in it? Must any and every subject result in a monograph? Would that research not be equally well, or better, served by a lengthy article? (I do think there’s a book in that particular subject, but that’s another story.) Ever since he said this, I have seen nothing but “article” books in the areas of popular psychology/neuroscience/behavioural economics/happiness studies that I favour — books with useful messages which are diluted by padding out in order to meet the average book’s size.

This came to mind while reading Atul Gawande’s slim book: he takes one clear and valuable area of research, does it thoroughly but without padding, and so despatches the book in 200 readable pages. ”Readable”, indeed, is a disservice: it’s a page-turner, both in terms of style and in the enormity of the implications of its findings. Gawande’s subject is the humble checklist. In a setting such as surgery, where even everyday activities are now vastly more complicated and multifarious than they ever used to be, the checklist provides a reminder, a safety net, a means of keeping people honest. It’s also a measure that people routinely overlook or resist — perhaps because of its residual whiff of box-ticking bureaucracy — despite its incredible benefits. Gawande charts the inception and development of a checklist of his own, one he developed with a team to further the Safe Surgery WHO initiative. When they ran trials of their checklist in countries both rich and poor, they found that with the addition of the WHO checklist major complications fell by 36%, deaths by 47%. ”If someone discovered a new drug,” Gawande observes, “that could cut down surgical complications with anything remotely like the effectiveness of the checklist, we would have television ads with minor celebrities extolling its virtues” (158). It’s a deeply thought-provoking read, suggesting that the checklist demonstrates that even our very ideals of what heroism looks like are now outmoded: the Errol Flynn type, a seat-of-the-pants swashbuckler, is nice, sure, but he’s a liability in high-stakes and highly complex situations such as surgery, where an entire surgical team need to work in sync with each other in order to succeed — a synchronicity greatly helped by, even thoroughly dependent on, simple measures of accountability like the checklist.

It should perhaps be noted that this is not a book for the faint-hearted; I dove in expecting tips on helping me with my own to-do lists (I don’t question how you get your kicks, people, so don’t question mine) and was brought up short with graphic descriptions of some very full-on surgical situations — a chest is sawn into, that kind of thing. The imagery always serves a purpose, but be prepared for the fact that it may not be the fodder of most of the books you’ll find recommended on productivity blogs.…

I’ve been horsing through Richard Herring’s Leicester Square Theatre Podcast, a show in which Herring interviews famous comedians (for the most part) in front of a live audience in a relaxed but informative manner. I have persevered not for Herring himself — he’s a good guy, but he spreads himself a bit thin these days — but because of the calibre of the people involved: Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton; Mark Thomas; Adam Buxton; Stephen Fry; unexpectedly, Mary Beard. I think my favourite has to be John Lloyd (comedy producer extraordinaire, responsible for things like Not the Nine O’Clock News, Blackadder and QI). This surprised me, as I thought Lloyd came off as unbelievably pleased with himself on his episode of Desert Island Discs, but faced with Herring he was far more likeable — admittedly, I liked him best when he annihilated Herring’s glib atheism. Lloyd pulled the rug from under Herring’s feet with a considered defence for polite agnosticism, observing that Herring doesn’t even know how many chemicals there are in a carrot, so how on earth could he make the call on the Almighty? Hurray!…